The Girl of Ink & Stars Read Free

here?’
    Cata’s mother jumped. One of the Governor’s men was striding towards us, the crowd parting like wheat before his blue tunic.
    â€˜If you see her, send her home,’ the woman said to me hurriedly, face twisted with worry. And then she was gone, running in the direction of the Governor’s estate.
    â€˜What a mess,’ tutted the stall keeper, starting to pick up the vegetables. ‘No, don’t help. You’ve caused enough trouble already.’
    Dazed, I walked to the corner of the market square where Lupe and I always met. Something in the woman’s face had shaken me, right to the bones. I hoped Cata was all right.
    â€˜Isa!’
    I spun around as Lupe came running across the square, satchel flying. The other villagers shrank back from her. The Governor’s daughter did not have many friends. Not that Lupe cared.
    â€˜I don’t give a fig,’ she’d said to one of the girls teasing her about the fussy plaits her mother insisted on. ‘Isabella likes them, and that’s enough for me.’
    We made an odd set, Lupe and I: she as tall as a near-grown boy, and I barely reaching her shoulder. She seemed to have got even taller in the month since I had last seen her. Her mother would not be pleased. Señora Adori was a petite, elegant woman with sad eyes and a cold smile. Lupe said she never laughed and believed girls should not run, nor have any right to be as tall as Lupe was getting.
    She squeezed me tightly and then drew back, eyeing me up and down.
    â€˜Still so short!’ she said enviously, then frowned. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone all pale. Did your da not let you out in the sun this summer? Mama does that, but sometimes I sneak out—’
    â€˜Cata’s missing.’ I pushed the words out. ‘I just saw her mother.’
    â€˜Cata?’
    I rolled my eyes impatiently. ‘The girl who sits at the back.’
    Lupe shifted from one foot to the other. She had that look on her face, like Pep sauntering away from a broken dish.
    I stared at her. ‘What?’
    â€˜What, what?’ said Lupe, pulling her satchel higher on to her shoulder.
    â€˜You know something.’ I stepped forward.
    â€˜No, I don’t.’ She stepped back.
    I raised my eyebrow the way Da had taught me.
    Lupe wilted. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s just, she was working in the kitchen this summer, and I asked her to go to the orchard for me yesterday, to get some—’
    â€˜The orchard!’ The sick feeling in my stomach was back. ‘Lupe, you know we’re not allowed.’
    â€˜Yes, of course I know, but I hadn’t had dragon fruit in ages . I needed to have them on my birthday, didn’t I?’
    I had never had dragon fruit and was not even sure what they looked like, but I did know they were Lupe’s favourite, grown in the Governor’s orchard at the edge of the forest. Out of bounds to everyone except his guards and a few of his servants.
    â€˜Lupe, you know that if Cata got caught, she’s probably in the Dédalo right now.’
    Lupe waved her hand dismissively. ‘Still on about that place? I’ve never seen it, and I live there.’
    It was typical that Lupe should not notice something right under her nose. And the Dédalo – the labyrinth – was right under her nose, because Governor Adori had built his house directly over the natural tunnels that were now his prison. Masha’s husband had served a decade there before he died.
    Lupe flung her arm around my shoulders. ‘Come on, grumpy guts. Cata will be fine!’ She began to propel me along the narrow street towards the fields. ‘She’ll already be in class, probably stuffing her face with my dragon fruit. I’lllet you have some, they’re so delicious. And don’t forget the fireworks tonight!’
    Lupe hated the dark, but she loved fireworks. They were extraordinary,